Memories of Ice

'You'd think they would. You'd think they'd not want to miss something like this.'

'Try thinking pleasant thoughts for a change, Blend. Hood's breath!'

'I was just wondering,' the woman shrugged. 'Anyway,' she continued, rising, 'I think I'm going to wander for a while. See what I can pick up.'

'You understand Barghast?'

'No, but sometimes the most telling communication doesn't use words.'

'You're as bad as the rest, Blend. Likely our last night among the living, and off you go.'

'But that's the whole point, isn't it?'

Picker watched her friend slip away into the shadows. Damned woman … got me sitting here more miserable than before. How do I know where the serious Barghast spirits are? Maybe they're just waiting behind some hill. Ready to jump out tomorrow morning and scare us all shitless. And how do I know what that Barghast warchief's going to decide tomorrow? A pat on the head or a knife across the throat?

Spindle pushed through the crowd and approached. The stench of burned hair hung around him like a second cloak and his expression was grim. He crouched down before her. 'It's going bad, Corporal.'

'That's a change,' she snapped. 'What is?'

'Half our soldiers are drunk and the rest are well on their way. Paran and his cronies disappearing into that tent and not coming out ain't been taken as a good sign. We won't be in any shape to do a damned thing come the dawn.'

Picker glanced over to Humbrall Taur's tent. The silhouetted figures within had not moved in some time. After a moment she nodded to herself. 'All right, Spin. Stop worrying about it. Go have some fun.'

The man gaped. 'Fun?'

'Yeah, remember? Relaxation, pleasure, a sense of well-being. Go on, she's out there somewhere and you won't be around nine months from now either. Of course, you might have a better chance if you took off that hairshirt — for this night at least-'

'I can't do that! What will Mother think?'

Picker studied the mage's fraught, horrified expression. 'Spindle,' she said slowly, 'your mother's dead. She ain't here, she ain't watching over you. You can misbehave, Spindle. Honest.'

The mage ducked down as if an invisible hand had just clouted him and for a moment Picker thought she saw an impression of knuckles bloom on the man's pate, then he scampered away, muttering and shaking his head.

Gods. maybe all our ancestors are here! Picker glared about. Come near me, Da, and I'll slit your Hood-damned throat, just like I did the first time.

Grainy-eyed with exhaustion, Paran stepped clear of the tent entrance. The sky was grey, faintly luminescent. Mist and woodsmoke hung motionless in the valley. A pack of dogs loping along one ridge was the only movement he could see.

And yet they're awake. All here. The real battle is done, and now, here before me — I can almost see them — stand the dark godlings of the Barghast, facing the dawn. for the first time in thousands of years, facing the mortal dawn.

A figure joined him. Paran glanced over. 'Well?'

'The Barghast Elder Spirits have left Mallet,' Quick Ben said. 'The healer sleeps. Can you feel them, Captain? The spirits? All the barriers have been shattered, the Old Ones have joined with their younger spirit kin. The forgotten warren is forgotten no more.'

'All very well,' Paran muttered, 'but we've still a city to liberate. What happens if Taur raises the standard of war and his rivals deny him?'

'They won't. They can't. Every shoulderman among the White Faces will awaken to the change, to the burgeoning. They'll feel that power, and know it for what it is. More, the spirits will make it known that their masters — the true gods of the Barghast — are trapped in Capustan. The Founding Spirits are awake. The time has come to free them.'

The captain studied the wizard at his side for a moment, then asked, 'Did you know the Moranth were kin to the Barghast?'

'More or less. Taur may not like it — and the tribes will howl — but if the spirits themselves have embraced Twist and his people. '

Paran sighed. I need to sleep. But I can't. 'I'd better gather the Bridgeburners.'

'Trotts's new tribe,' Quick Ben said, grinning.

'Then why can I hear his snores?'

'He's new to responsibility, Captain. You'll have to teach him.'

Teach him what? How to live beneath the burden of command? That's something I can't manage myself. I need only look into Whiskey jack's face to understand that no-one can — no-one who has a heart, anyway. We learn to achieve but one thing: the ability to hide our thoughts, to mask our feelings, to bury our humanity deep in our souls. And that can't be taught, only shown.

'Go rouse the bastard,' Paran growled.

'Yes, sir.'

CHAPTER TWELVE

In the Mountain's Heart she waited,

dreaming of peace, so deeply curled

around her grief, when he found her,

the man's search was done,

and he took upon himself her every scar

for power's embrace is a love

that wounds.

Rise of the Domin

Scintalla of Bastion (1129–1164)

The mountain fastness of outlook, its back to the lake, was the colour of water-thinned blood in the sunset. Condors wheeled around it, twice the mass of Great Ravens, their collared necks crooked as they studied the humans seething around the base of the fortress amidst a grounded starscape of campfires.

The one-eyed Tenescowri who had once been a scout in Onearm's Host followed their curving flight with deep concentration, as if godly messages could be read in the condors' sweeping patterns against the deepening sky. He had been truly embraced, agreed those who knew him by sight. Felled mute by the Domin's vastness since that day in Bastion, three weeks past. There had been a savage hunger in his lone eye from the very beginning, an ancient fire that whispered ever louder of wolves padding the darkness. It was said that Anaster himself, First among the Children of the Dead Seed, had noted the man, had indeed drawn him closer during the long march, until the one-eyed Tenescowri had been given a horse, and rode with Anaster's lieutenants at the vanguard of the human tide.

Of course, Anaster's company of lieutenants changed faces with brutal regularity.

The shapeless, starving army now waited at the feet of the Pannion Seer. At dawn he would appear upon a balcony of Outlook's central tower, and raise his hands in holy benediction. The bestial howl that would rise to greet his blessing would shatter a lesser man, but the Seer, ancient as he was, was no ordinary man. He was the embodiment of Pannion, the god, the only god.

When Anaster led the Tenescowri army north, to the river, then beyond, to Capustan, he would carry within him the power that was the Seer. And the enemy that had gathered to oppose them would be raped, devoured, obliterated from the earth. There was no doubt in the minds of the hundred thousand. Only certainty, a razor-sharp sword of iron held in the grip of ceaseless, desperate hunger.

The one-eyed man continued staring at the condors as the light faded. Perhaps, some whispered, he was in